The problem appears to be that there isn’t yet enough trust between Russia and the US to fully overcome their security dilemma in spite of the impressive progress that’s been made thus far.
Trump’s pre-electoral victory boast of ending the Ukraine war within a day of taking office was premised on the assumption that he could grab Zelensky and Putin by their respective collars and bang their heads together until they reached a comprise that he, alone, deemed acceptable to both sides, or which he thought ought to be acceptable. Even now, Trump seems heedless of the reality that the winners on any battlefield typically have little or no incentive to compromise at all. In short, he never took Putin seriously on any of VVP’s objectives for waging the SMO.
That said, a premise of your arguments in recent months has been that Russia already is, or fears becoming, a junior partner of China - which it never was, still isn’t, nor ever will be, for at least two of several reasons:
First, an intact Russian Federation is of existential importance for Beijing. Both Putin and Xi understand equally well that a dismantled Russia would immediately result in a number of small pro-Western ‘sovereign’ states established along China’s borders, some. or all of which would likely have American missiles and military bases placed on them.
Second. In the midst of escalating tensions between the West and and Russia, the former is now clearly intent upon severing China’s maritime trade links with the world, specifically, the Malacca Strait, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, Simon’s Town in South Africa, possibly an enlarged naval base in Senegal, West Africa, and the Panama Canal. The latter being the site of the first overt American attempt to sever Beijing’s maritime trade routes.
Which leaves the Northern Sea Route in the Arctic Ocean, which runs roughly parallel to a part of Russia’s Arctic coastline, which in total covers 53% of Russian territory, from St. Petersburg to the Bering Strait. It is along this stretch of coastline that Russia has built or refurbished some fifty naval/military bases, often with funding and assistance by China. Simply put, the Arctic could conceivably become Beijing’s last maritime trade route between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
It is this possibility, this potential vulnerability, that prompted China to revive the old Silk Road by building overland trade routes that connected East and West with roads, railways, bridges and power stations, which provided the requisite energy to construct such infrastructure.
It is this BRI that has aroused the ire of the West for having thwarted its plan to cripple and isolate China by blocking her trade routes and, hence, weakening her economy to the extent that she threatens nobody. Russia’s influence in some of the central Asian regions, through which the BRI passes, adds to the security of the BRI, where it is already being sabotaged in some places by American proxies
I realise, Andrew, that you are more than au fait with all of the above, indeed an expert, but this critique is directed at your huge readership, who may not all be familiar with these arguments. In my book, Russia remains China’s peer, in certain instances its superior.
It's quite clear, that Trump isn't as well informed as he ought to be.
The Russian offensive is in the Kursk region, that is Russia, as Trump ought to know. The reason for the Russian success in Kursk region, isn't Trump blocking intelligence to Ukraine, but Ukraine taking out it's Best forces and replacing them with the unmotivated conscripts. Trump missed that one.
I don’t think that Russia relies much on direct ‘foreign financing’ per se to fund its military and related expenditures, as the Europeans frequently claim. The conflict is instead paid for out of domestic tax revenues. ie Russia pays for the war for in Rubles, not in $US or Euros, although oil and gas exporters do obviously pay substantial amounts of tax. Russia nevertheless has a lot of fiscal space, being effectively running a balanced budget in the middle of a war, which is a pretty remarkable achievement.
Russia’s limited imports of weaponry from Iran and North Korea are probably paid for mostly through a barter mechanism of some sort, rather than direct foreign currency transfers, which would be problematic.
The difficulty from a Russian perspective in becoming so heavily reliant on India for oil export revenue is that India pays for its oil in Rupees - not a currency that you would wish to accumulate in large amounts, the Rupee not being freely convertible, and India producing very little that Russia actually needs, and upon which it can spend its large Rupee surpluses.
If the United States does go ahead with a new round of financial sanctions as it has threatened to do, the Russians will still have a few levers to pull before they need to be seriously concerned.
If the US threatens that Russia wouldn't be able to sell India oil and gas, Russia will roll on the floor laughing out lol. The problem for Russia in its trade with India is that all it gets is non-convertible Rupees*. So it's either buy something Indian or watch the money gradually disappear through inflation several degrees hotter than in the US. Difficult choice. However, a lot of Russian trade exports is currently stored as the devaluing Rupee stock. Even if Russian sales would go to zero, Russians will still be able to use that stock for buying Indian goods for quite a long time.
So why is Russia selling oil and gas to India in widely excess of Indian imports at all? Probably just because it can. It doesn't hurt to buttress one's allies.
*That's a general problem for BRICS countries. With the exception of Russia and China, everyone else currently in - South Africa, India, Brazil, as well as anyone interested in joining: Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran etc - are running humongous budget deficits. Hence, brics as THE currency is doomed. The only means of trusted exchange beyond Western currencies would be gold. But India is not interested in settling trade deficits in gold... For obvious reasons.
The simplest explanation is often the most likely one....
Often, not always.
Secondary sanctions are a massive gambit, don't think Trump is a swindler or a gambler, not even as an innuendo to roughen up things before sweetening it for the deal close.
I think the sanctions threat is the typical Trumpian bluster we always see when he is in the opening stages of making a deal. Remember what he said he'd do to North Korea just a few years ago, and to Iran. Nothing happened when no deal was reached, except that Trump found something else to bluster about.
All Russia has to do is to stick to her non-negotiable positions and give Trump some face-saving thing he can brag about, and y'all will get your treaty, the Crimea, the predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts in eastern Ukraine, and a kinda sorta neutral Ukraine that poses no serious threat.
Trump has to play up the theatrics as he knows there is little he can do. If Ukraine is not willing to settle along the Russian lines, then Ukrainians have to settle it with the Russians on the ground. If Trump makes threats and then his bluff is called by the Russians, Trump may lose his domestic momentum as well.
A declaration for peace is meaningless given that the Bandera power which won in the Maidan proceeded to do nothing but lie to Putin throughout the Minsk Accords from 2014 until 2022, and then nothing but lies internationally to the present day. Russia needs to answer these lies which means, not by means of an individual few in the Russian leadership, but by means of a Trotsky rooted party. RT is not the full answer but at least the sanctions on it must be lifted. At the same time the fate of the American Gonzalo Lira made known to every American. Peace will never be possible without Banderaism being defeated and rooted out
It is remarkable how clearly economic and geopolitical acts intervene in Russia-India relations. I am still unprepared to classify Trump a Peace Dove but he acts like one as he is pushing both parties toward a peace treaty and this reinforces him as a genuine arbiter. It is difficult to believe that Trump will substantially punish India in case of noncompliance. On the long run India cannot be pushed into a wolf den as the China Pivot assumes India as a serious player for U.S. interests there. In other words, Trump will have to tread carefully with India and Russia both, they will be needed if not allies but at least as neutral observers in case of a USA vs. China conflict. And here comes again the issue of denying the Russian Federation a proper position as a regional power in the Western World after 1991. The price is already high and it will be growing in the future.
Trump’s pre-electoral victory boast of ending the Ukraine war within a day of taking office was premised on the assumption that he could grab Zelensky and Putin by their respective collars and bang their heads together until they reached a comprise that he, alone, deemed acceptable to both sides, or which he thought ought to be acceptable. Even now, Trump seems heedless of the reality that the winners on any battlefield typically have little or no incentive to compromise at all. In short, he never took Putin seriously on any of VVP’s objectives for waging the SMO.
That said, a premise of your arguments in recent months has been that Russia already is, or fears becoming, a junior partner of China - which it never was, still isn’t, nor ever will be, for at least two of several reasons:
First, an intact Russian Federation is of existential importance for Beijing. Both Putin and Xi understand equally well that a dismantled Russia would immediately result in a number of small pro-Western ‘sovereign’ states established along China’s borders, some. or all of which would likely have American missiles and military bases placed on them.
Second. In the midst of escalating tensions between the West and and Russia, the former is now clearly intent upon severing China’s maritime trade links with the world, specifically, the Malacca Strait, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, Simon’s Town in South Africa, possibly an enlarged naval base in Senegal, West Africa, and the Panama Canal. The latter being the site of the first overt American attempt to sever Beijing’s maritime trade routes.
Which leaves the Northern Sea Route in the Arctic Ocean, which runs roughly parallel to a part of Russia’s Arctic coastline, which in total covers 53% of Russian territory, from St. Petersburg to the Bering Strait. It is along this stretch of coastline that Russia has built or refurbished some fifty naval/military bases, often with funding and assistance by China. Simply put, the Arctic could conceivably become Beijing’s last maritime trade route between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
It is this possibility, this potential vulnerability, that prompted China to revive the old Silk Road by building overland trade routes that connected East and West with roads, railways, bridges and power stations, which provided the requisite energy to construct such infrastructure.
It is this BRI that has aroused the ire of the West for having thwarted its plan to cripple and isolate China by blocking her trade routes and, hence, weakening her economy to the extent that she threatens nobody. Russia’s influence in some of the central Asian regions, through which the BRI passes, adds to the security of the BRI, where it is already being sabotaged in some places by American proxies
I realise, Andrew, that you are more than au fait with all of the above, indeed an expert, but this critique is directed at your huge readership, who may not all be familiar with these arguments. In my book, Russia remains China’s peer, in certain instances its superior.
It's quite clear, that Trump isn't as well informed as he ought to be.
The Russian offensive is in the Kursk region, that is Russia, as Trump ought to know. The reason for the Russian success in Kursk region, isn't Trump blocking intelligence to Ukraine, but Ukraine taking out it's Best forces and replacing them with the unmotivated conscripts. Trump missed that one.
Thanks for another interesting article.
A few observations:
I don’t think that Russia relies much on direct ‘foreign financing’ per se to fund its military and related expenditures, as the Europeans frequently claim. The conflict is instead paid for out of domestic tax revenues. ie Russia pays for the war for in Rubles, not in $US or Euros, although oil and gas exporters do obviously pay substantial amounts of tax. Russia nevertheless has a lot of fiscal space, being effectively running a balanced budget in the middle of a war, which is a pretty remarkable achievement.
Russia’s limited imports of weaponry from Iran and North Korea are probably paid for mostly through a barter mechanism of some sort, rather than direct foreign currency transfers, which would be problematic.
The difficulty from a Russian perspective in becoming so heavily reliant on India for oil export revenue is that India pays for its oil in Rupees - not a currency that you would wish to accumulate in large amounts, the Rupee not being freely convertible, and India producing very little that Russia actually needs, and upon which it can spend its large Rupee surpluses.
If the United States does go ahead with a new round of financial sanctions as it has threatened to do, the Russians will still have a few levers to pull before they need to be seriously concerned.
If the US threatens that Russia wouldn't be able to sell India oil and gas, Russia will roll on the floor laughing out lol. The problem for Russia in its trade with India is that all it gets is non-convertible Rupees*. So it's either buy something Indian or watch the money gradually disappear through inflation several degrees hotter than in the US. Difficult choice. However, a lot of Russian trade exports is currently stored as the devaluing Rupee stock. Even if Russian sales would go to zero, Russians will still be able to use that stock for buying Indian goods for quite a long time.
So why is Russia selling oil and gas to India in widely excess of Indian imports at all? Probably just because it can. It doesn't hurt to buttress one's allies.
*That's a general problem for BRICS countries. With the exception of Russia and China, everyone else currently in - South Africa, India, Brazil, as well as anyone interested in joining: Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran etc - are running humongous budget deficits. Hence, brics as THE currency is doomed. The only means of trusted exchange beyond Western currencies would be gold. But India is not interested in settling trade deficits in gold... For obvious reasons.
It also has no bond market making it riskier than some meme coin.
And what if Trump's latest threat was not a carefully considered move in a chess game, but just another one of his whims?
The simplest explanation is often the most likely one....
Often, not always.
Secondary sanctions are a massive gambit, don't think Trump is a swindler or a gambler, not even as an innuendo to roughen up things before sweetening it for the deal close.
I think the sanctions threat is the typical Trumpian bluster we always see when he is in the opening stages of making a deal. Remember what he said he'd do to North Korea just a few years ago, and to Iran. Nothing happened when no deal was reached, except that Trump found something else to bluster about.
All Russia has to do is to stick to her non-negotiable positions and give Trump some face-saving thing he can brag about, and y'all will get your treaty, the Crimea, the predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts in eastern Ukraine, and a kinda sorta neutral Ukraine that poses no serious threat.
Trump has to play up the theatrics as he knows there is little he can do. If Ukraine is not willing to settle along the Russian lines, then Ukrainians have to settle it with the Russians on the ground. If Trump makes threats and then his bluff is called by the Russians, Trump may lose his domestic momentum as well.
A declaration for peace is meaningless given that the Bandera power which won in the Maidan proceeded to do nothing but lie to Putin throughout the Minsk Accords from 2014 until 2022, and then nothing but lies internationally to the present day. Russia needs to answer these lies which means, not by means of an individual few in the Russian leadership, but by means of a Trotsky rooted party. RT is not the full answer but at least the sanctions on it must be lifted. At the same time the fate of the American Gonzalo Lira made known to every American. Peace will never be possible without Banderaism being defeated and rooted out
Putin will not agree to any cease fire. The West cannot be trusted.
Thanks Andrew, good work as usual.
It is remarkable how clearly economic and geopolitical acts intervene in Russia-India relations. I am still unprepared to classify Trump a Peace Dove but he acts like one as he is pushing both parties toward a peace treaty and this reinforces him as a genuine arbiter. It is difficult to believe that Trump will substantially punish India in case of noncompliance. On the long run India cannot be pushed into a wolf den as the China Pivot assumes India as a serious player for U.S. interests there. In other words, Trump will have to tread carefully with India and Russia both, they will be needed if not allies but at least as neutral observers in case of a USA vs. China conflict. And here comes again the issue of denying the Russian Federation a proper position as a regional power in the Western World after 1991. The price is already high and it will be growing in the future.